Reader Response (Final) (Global digital divide persists but is narrowing)

Euromonitor's blogpost on ‘Global digital divide persists but is narrowing’ (2011) makes inferences from the statistics provided by Euromonitor International that developed economies will continue to enjoy higher broadband diffusion rate due to larger government expenditure, advanced IT framework and higher wages that allow ownership of computers. It also mentions that the developing countries are slowly catching up due to the rapid economic growth. This has led to a wide range of effects on the society, such as varying business opportunities, reduction in urban-rural disparities with better information diffusion, social and cultural integration and alteration in government expenditure and policies.

In this blogpost, the author has raised many interesting general trends related to global digital divide. The length of the blogpost coupled with the scale of the topic restricted the author from discussing the trends specific to the countries. I believe that it is also very important to look deeper into the general trends as digital divide is often seen as a divide between the urban and the rural area. With every country having their own unique population demographics, ideals and goals, it is bound to affect the trends of digital divide differently. In this response, I will explore how the population demographic and goals of China may have affected the digital divide.

An issue that the Euromonitor International blogpost fails to point out is the rural-urban disparity. This is very evident in most countries in the world. It is stated in the Go-Globe blogpost (2013) on ‘Internet usage in China- Statistics and Trends [Infographic]’ that 72.4% of the Internet users in China lives in urban areas, leaving the remaining 27.6% of the Internet users in rural areas. According to The World Bank’s statistic, 53% of China’s population lives in the urban area as of 2013. With similar urban and rural population size, the urban population has close to 3 times the amount of internet users as compared to the rural population. Even with the exceptional growth of Internet penetration rate in China, most of it is attributed to the urban areas as they have better Information Technology (IT) framework and more attention from the government due to the many benefits that can be reaped such as economic growth and recognition. This is very evident from the exponential economic growth, development and recognition experienced by states like Shanghai and Beijing which became international business hubs in the recent years. However, much more effort and resources will be needed to develop the rural regions into successful business hubs and achieve similar results seen in Shanghai and Beijing. The large potential cost of development deters the Chinese government from placing more resources in the rural areas. This results in stagnation in growth for rural areas while urban areas develops at exponential rates. The difference in growth will eventually lead to a widening rural-urban disparity, resulting in many other negative implications such as widening income gap and more importantly, widening digital divide.

The Euromonitor International blogpost has pointed out various trends and analysed the demographics for Internet penetration rate, and is well supported with statistics. It also discussed the possible reasons and implications of these trends. However, in the case of China, it is obvious that the growth is not uniform between rural and urban areas and these will lead to many other social implications in the long run. Therefore, I believe that it is also very important to analyse the population demographic of a country thoroughly by comparing different population groups accordingly to identify any underlying trends and observations. Given the amount of research, studies and observations required to fully analyse a country’s demographics, it may be too much to ask for a blogpost. Overall, it is a very informative blogpost as it not only allows me to broaden my understanding on Internet penetration rates and its impacts, but also gave me a chance to explore demographics that people have always failed to discuss due to the scale of the topic. 

References:

Euromonitor International. (2011, February 2). Global digital divide persists but is narrowing. Retrieved August 25, 2014, from http://blog.euromonitor.com/2011/02/global-digital-divide-persists-but-is-narrowing-1.html

Go-Globe. (2013, August 14). Internet Usage in China – Statistics and Trends [Infographic]. Retrieved September 5, 2014 from http://www.go-globe.com/blog/internet-usage-china/

The World Bank. (n.d.). Urban Population (% of total). Retrieved September 5, 2014 from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS